Following the closure of the Fresh & Easy at Silver and Somerset in Portola, the Fresh & Easy at 32nd Avenue and Clement in the Outer Richmond, which was the first F&E to open in San Francisco, became the sole outpost for the retailer in the city.
And now, the 32nd Avenue store will soon close as Fresh & Easy is throwing in the towel in the U.S. and will shutter all of its remaining stores in California, Arizona and Nevada. The first round of layoffs are expected in a week.
While a replacement grocer for the 32nd Avenue site has yet to be announced, we’d be willing to bet that Grocery Outlet, which has already grabbed Fresh & Easy’s former Portola and Mission District sites is on, if not atop, a short list.
Count me doubtful on Grocery Outlet. There is one on 28th and Geary already, at the former Cala Food location. That’s a mere 5 blocks.
While two locations that close might not pencil, keep in mind that the 32nd Ave site offers more parking, a larger store, and a co-located CVS.
I knew Fresh & Easy would eventually go under. Thanks Jim Keyes!
I wonder which company will hire you, and go bankrupt next?
A Whole Foods would be great – none on this side of the City – but wonder if the box is large enough? Trader Joe’s instead, perhaps? Here’s hoping…
hmm… too quick choosing a name perhaps?
That’s an unfortunate loss. It was a convenient stop after a hike along the Land’s End trail or a trip to the Legion. Any timeline on their exact closure date or will they just wait til the shelves are bare and slowly fade away… Stale & Hard. Cue Trader Joe’s?
And once again, a British grocery retailer discovers that conquering the highly segmented and inefficient U.S. grocery market is like waging a land war in Asia or invading Russia in winter. Just. Don’t. Do. It. (Marks and Spencer attempted it in the Northeast and wound up exiting in short order.)
This pretty sums up how challenging our market is in the retail grocery space – and how our choice between over-priced yuppie Whole Foods and mediocre overprice Safeway is not the European norm: Why the U.S. Should Adopt British-Style Supermarkets.
Trader Joe’s is German owned and doing just fine by all accounts.
Trader Joe’s was a European-based grocery store that expanded into U.S. operations. It was founded in the late 1960s by an American. Its was eventually bought by a German investor, well over a decade later.
So yeah, not at all the same thing. Thanks for playing though.
European-based as in Southern California.
Trader Joe’s was founded in Southern California and had no European roots until it was bought by a German company.
never stepped foot in one. what did i miss??
Target meets Trader Joes.
Good description, I only checked it out once but it didn’t really feel like a grocery store. Lots of packaged items but very little fresh items.
Stale & Hard?
The self checkout model is flawed. A TJ or WF would do spectacularly in that location in about 5 years as a little more density comes to that part of town and a little more gentrification.
The former fresh and easy in Bayview on 3rd st is getting replaced by Duc Loi, which is sweet. The one on mission st does well and I’m sure this one will too. Plus they have big Vietnamese sandwiches. No more buying 2 to make a meal anymore.
It’s a huge loss for the Outer Richmond. I loved walking over there and picking up necessities. They also carried items not found at other grocers. I wouldn’t mind seeing a Whole Foods or even a Sprouts go in there. Grocery Outlet would be a waste, as another commentor noted there’s a brand new one five blocks away.
So sad. Definitely my favorite store to buy convenient fresh food. They had tons of premade food in the refrigerated section instead of frozen, which was really neat.
Count me out of the insultingly high-margin crap at WF (and increasingly nearly the whole store is catering/pandering to the idiot set who think gluten is suddenly poisoning them). And besides that the only full service stores are a collection of the nation’s saddest Safeways, and two whole Lucky stores. TJ’s is not a grocery store; it’s a quirky, innovative scheme to sell only store-brand everything.
That’s stupid. trader joes doesn’t sell its own brands because they don’t make any of the products they sell.
They use the labels that are widely known brands. They sell things cheaper because they buy everything for cash. It would be so wonderful for our neighborhood for trader joes to be here.
I would be SOOOO disappointed if this ended up being a Grocery Outlet. There is already one a few blocks away, and it is horrible. You can go there for something totally basic and they don’t have it. I am rooting for Trader Joe’s but I’d take a Whole Foods any day before Grocery Outlet. Lets hope!
UPDATE: Plans for Shuttered Fresh & Easy Site Slated for Approval